For those not in the know, born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, John Fred Gourrier was a singer-songwriter whose original material encompassed rock and roll, R&B, blue-eyed soul, bubblegum, and swamp pop.

For his stage name, he dropped his last name and worked as John Fred, formed his group John Fred and the Playboys in 1956 and the group’s first charting single was 1959’s Shirley.

By 1968, the band was renamed John Fred & His Playboy Band and the group scored a Billboard #1 single with the bubblegum pop of Judy in Disguise (With Glasses).

Co-written by Fred and band member Andrew Bernard, Judy in Disguise (With Glasses) also found massive popularity outside the U.S., reaching peak position in Germany, Switzerland, and Australia, and #3 in Canada and the United Kingdom.

Fred admitted that the song’s title was a playful take on the Beatles’ Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, but ironically, Judy in Disguise (With Glasses) would knock another Beatles song (Hello Goodbye) out of the Billboard #1 singles position for two weeks in January 1968.

Fred recorded several albums for Paula Records, none of which have ever been reissued on vinyl thus Liberation Hall is proud to introduce the album version of Judy in Disguise With Glasses to a new generation.

1. Judy in Disguise
2. Agnes English
3. Out of Left Field
4. She Shot a Hole in My Soul
5. Hey Hey Bunny
6. No Letter Today
7. Little Dum Dum
8. Tissue Paper
9. Lonely Are the Lonely
10. We Played Games
11. Up and Down
12. Off the Wall

This still very much buoyantly effervescent, colorfully vibrant album opens on the upbeat, joyful and abundantly soulful title track Judy in Disguise (which features strings, brass, a sitar, piano, bass, guitar, drums, breathing sounds, and even dissonant string sounds) and the euphoric-charged Agnes English, the aching balladry of Out of Left Field and then comes the Motown-eseque She Shot a Hole in My Soul and the gently fervent, horn-imbibed Hey Hey Bunny.

The yearning psych No Letter Today is itself then followed by the finger-snapping funk of and guitar slaying within Little Dum Dum and they are backed by the twirling, harmonic swirls of Tissue Paper, the low slung rhythms of Lonely Are the Lonely, the album rounding out on the hand-clapper We Played Games, the exuberant Up and Down, coming to a close on the tambourine-led, psych rocker Off the Wall.

The CD will be released on May 6th, 2022 with a Psychedelic Grape colored vinyl to be released on April 23rd, 2022.